Cold Comfort
by Sorcha Luxor
Summary: Jack and Daniel do the neardeath experience on an ice planet. Revelations ensue, of course. Can be read alone, or as the first in the Mirror Crack'd series, followed by Status Quo and Little Things.
1. Chapter 1 Cold Comfort

"Ice age!" Jack snapped, turning to stare at Daniel. "Glacier?" The stare turned into a glare and Jack had the gall to sound affronted, as if the three miles of ice below their feet was somehow all Daniel's fault.

Daniel nodded glumly, his quickly numbing nose encouraging him to consider the thought of a good, rousing fight with Jack. It might not be productive, but it would certainly get them warmed up. "A glacier," he confirmed, gazing out at an unbroken expanse before them of white, white and more white. Behind them was an equally devoid vista, with the exception of the Stargate and one exceedingly frozen DHD. There was also a deep, yawning chasm that separated them from the DHD and the Gate. Having tumbled through the Gate after telemetry from the MALP revealed no immediate dangers, a thunderous rumble had sliced through the ice and effectively turned them into two teams of two. Sam and Teal'c were now tackling the DHD with a certain desperation.

"Why didn't the MALP send us that information?" Jack demanded, still looking offended.

Daniel clenched his teeth, both from irritation and a hard shudder of cold. "It just sent back ice, cold and what seemed like structures."

"They're not structures," Jack pointed out, and Daniel's teeth-clenching became teeth-grinding.

"I know," he said, after a deep, calming breath. "But they looked like structures. Can I help it if the ice fragmented in just the right, uh, wrong way to look like towers?"

Jack just cursed under his breath and keyed his radio. "Carter!" he snapped.

"Yes, sir!" Carter said after a moment.

"How long is it going to take you to thaw that damn thing out?"

"I don't know, sir. We've got to see if the cold has cracked any of the crystals, and take it from there. It's possible it could be a while, especially if we need to defrost it. What with just the sterno to warm it up, it could be … well, a while."

Jack swore again. "Well, do what you can, Carter. The sooner you get that up and running, the sooner you can go home and come back." It really galled him that he was, in essence, helpless. The crevice was just too deep and just too wide for him and Daniel to get across and join the other two, even if they tied all their ropes together and wished really hard. They'd have to wait for another team to come through, equipped with more useful gear to get them back to the Gate. In the meantime, he and Daniel …

"Daniel and I are going to poke around. Not that I have much hope of finding anything. We'll keep in radio contact." He dialed down the volume on his radio and turned to Daniel. "Well?" he said.

Daniel squared his shoulders. "Well, I'm thinking you're right and that it's a waste of time," he said, causing Jack's mouth to fall open in shock at Daniel agreeing with him. "But we might as well, as you say, 'poke around.' Who knows, maybe we'll find some frozen Ancients." Jack snorted and pulled his hood closer around his face.

"Frozen Ancients would be good," he agreed, sliding easily into step with Daniel as they just picked a direction at random and set out, being careful about where they put their feet, and keeping an ear out for the sound of cracking ice. "Maybe some woolly mammoths, too. Like in 'Quest for the Clan Bear,'" he added.

Daniel shuddered, and Jack knew it wasn't the cold this time. "'Clan of the Cave Bear,'" Daniel corrected him, and shuddered again. "Tell me you didn't read that horrible piece of trumped-up pseudo-anthropological bullshit," he begged.

Jack was immeasurably glad his face was already red from the cold. He simply muttered something like, "I wouldn't be caught dead reading that crap," and pushed aside the fact that he had, indeed, read the book in an attempt to try to understand Daniel better. Not only did he not understand Daniel any better, but he'd been bored stupid and incredibly frustrated by the author's poor writing skills. He'd read fishing magazines that used better structure. As an antidote, he'd watched all three Indiana Jones movies straight through. For the umpteenth time. But it had helped. He got the glasses thing, he got the old rocks thing, he even got the enthusiasm thing. Definitely more illuminating than Quest for the Clan Bear. Cave Bear. Whatever.

Daniel paused in his slog through the knee-deep snow and gazed out over the immense fields of snow and ice. "You've got to wonder, though," he said musingly, pushing his sungoggles up on his forehead, "just how long it's been since the Stargate's been here."

Jack grunted. "Long enough," he said shortly.

Daniel grinned. "And it's _on top_ of the ice. So that means the Ancients came here when it was still ice. It's been ice for millennia. What did they come here for?"

"Skiing?" Jack suggested brightly.

Daniel snorted derisively, then reconsidered. "Well," he said slowly. "Who knows? I just can't figure out a sane, plausible reason for the Gate to be here, _on top_ of the ice."

Jack raised an eyebrow and settled in for a long, rambling thought process that would make James Joyce blush with envy. When Daniel started worrying at a problem like a dog with a bone, he didn't let it go until he got to a hypothesis that he could at least work with, if not bank on.

While Daniel posited theories to himself, occasionally bouncing comments off Jack like, "Well, I suppose it would depend on where the Gate was in the network, right? No, that wouldn't matter, because … ," Jack just put his brain on autopilot, kept an ear cocked for that dreaded pistol-shot of ice disengaging, and trudged along beside Daniel. To be honest, he wasn't having a horrible time. Granted, it was damn cold and every appendage – yes, every – was trying to crawl as far into his body as possible to keep warm, but it wasn't horrible, really. No one was shooting at them, no snake-heads were trying to take them as hosts, nothing was about to blow up. It was, by all accounts, fairly enjoyable. Daniel's cheeks were bright red, his eyes even bluer in contrast, and Jack vaguely appreciated the pleasing combination of colors. And, really, all Jack was hearing was "Gate … ice … Gate … structures … Gate." He didn't even have to turn his head to know that those blue, blue eyes would be alight with the thrill of the intellectual hunt, that mobile mouth carrying on about something archaeologically, fantastically, amazingly earth-shattering. He'd smile and nod, make like he was paying attention, then watch his feet and let the flow of words wash over him and pretend he was on a skiing vacation. With a very long hike to the lift. So he was understandably brought up short when Daniel stopped in his tracks and puffed out a cloudy breath of dissatisfaction.

"This is stupid," he muttered, turning to Jack. "Let's just head back to the great yawning abyss and wait for the cavalry to come."

And then he was gone. One second, Jack was about to make one of his inevitable smart-ass comments to a thoroughly chapped-lipped archaeologist when suddenly, the archaeologist was gone, chapped lips and all. Poof. Jack's brain stuttered back into gear and his head jerked down hard enough for his chin to hit the zipper on his chest with a painful thwhack. At his feet gaped a hole, about ten feet across and still showering ice and snow upon an immobile, bloody shape about twenty feet below. "Daniel!" he shouted, and cringed as the force of his voice sent another cascade of cold crap down on Daniel's body. Panting, Jack stretched out on his belly, carefully edging closer to the hole until his face was just peering over the rim. "Daniel," he whispered hoarsely and his eyes closed in fervent thankfulness when the body below stirred.

"Jack," Daniel called back softly, and rolled onto his back. His ski cap was gone. Blood was running freely from a gash in his forehead, down his face and into his hair, and his nose had obviously been bloodied as well. He coughed and started to sit.

"No," Jack said, and his voice was tense with urgency for all that it was hushed. "Don't move. I don't think that ledge is stable."

Daniel froze and gently, ever so gently, eased himself back down to a prone position. "It's getting cold, Jack," he said softly, blinking against the blood that was getting in his eyes. The pink-cheeked archaeologist was now sheet-white, almost as white as his AF parka and the snow beneath him. "Hurry up and rescue me, would you?"

Daniel was alright for the moment. He wouldn't get snarky and impatient if he wasn't. Even as Jack started reaching – carefully – for his rope and pitons, Daniel was slowly – carefully – scooping up a handful of snow, packing it in his palm, and pressing it against the wound on his forehead. In that little place in the back of his mind where he put his freak-outs and worries, Jack was mightily glad that Daniel had the presence of mind to care of that blood flow, because from here the snow underneath Daniel just seemed to be soaked in red.

There was a faint, distant rumble, and Jack and Daniel both froze. It felt like minutes before Jack's heart started beating again and he kept at his work, moving at a frustrating, snail's pace.

Rope was tied to a piton, which was hammered – carefully – into ice, the rope unspooled, then threaded through a pulley, the gear coming together in a slow, gentle fashion, all the while murmuring down to Daniel, "Hang on, I'll be right there." Daniel didn't move except to continue to apply ice to his forehead.

Then – carefully – Jack began lowering himself down towards Daniel, inch by agonizing inch until his feet were just hovering above Daniel's chest. "Okay," Jack said quietly with a last look up towards the top of the hole where his rope curved out of view. "Slowly, really slowly, sit up, and hang onto my legs." Daniel did just that, feeling the muscles in his stomach clenching as he rested a hand gently on Jack's calf, his other arm reaching up to grasp the second leg. Then he slid his feet, oh-so-slowly, under his buttocks and pushed. Gently. The ledge held and Daniel rested his forehead against Jack's back for a second as the relief flooded him nearly senseless. "Christ," he groaned.

"Yeah," Jack concurred. "Now, hang onto my harness, Daniel, wrap your hands through those straps. You're going to have to help with your feet. Can you do that?" Daniel whispered, "Yeah," and Jack felt Daniel's body pressing up against his back as Daniel got his hands wrapped up in velcro. "Stay with me, Daniel," Jack said firmly, and starting winching up the rope, using his feet to brace both himself and Daniel, feeling Daniel's legs under his butt and between his knees as Daniel sunk his cleats into the ice-wall and pushed up.

Never had Jack been happier to see a horizon. He flopped like a landed fish onto his stomach, squirmed out of the icy hole, reaching back to pull Daniel after him. Then, still slowly, they slithered down a slight incline on their bellies, down and away from the crevasse. And not a moment too soon. In the far distance, they heard the sound of a Gate being powered up, and all around them, the ice shuddered.

"Carter!" Jack shouted into his radio. "What the hell are you doing?"

The Gate sounds ground down and the shuddering slowly faded into shivers, then into a last jiggle before everything was silent again, except for the wind whistling past their ears.

"Sorry, sir," Carter whispered in response, her voice clearly horrified. "What happened?"

"You're shaking the world apart, Carter," Jack snapped, then rested his forehead on his forearm for a moment. "Carter. Sorry. What's the status?"

"Well, I think we've got the crystals warmed up enough to try to get a wormhole back to Earth. But I'm thinking there's a problem. If the Gate is causing the ice to shift, two wormholes – one going and one coming – could really shatter this area. It's probably what separated us in the first place. The second wormhole, after the MALP was sent through, must've disturbed the glacier enough to split the ice right after we came through."

"Carter, you're right, it is a problem. But we don't have a choice, now, do we? Daniel's been hurt and we need to get him medical attention as soon as possible."

"Is he all right?"

"He will be if you'll _leave._" Dammit. He hadn't meant to sound like that, but Daniel hadn't moved since exiting the ice hole except to turn his head towards Jack and breathe. "Give us five minutes to get away from this freakin' hole in the ground, and then get the hell out of here."

With that done, Jack shimmied over to Daniel on his stomach and turned the younger man over, pulling him into his lap. He wiped the blood off Daniel's face and inspected the wound on the forehead. The blood flow had diminished to seepage, thankfully, but Daniel's gaze as it met Jack's was unsteady. "Okay, Daniel," Jack said, patting Daniel's icy cheek. "Stay with me."

Daniel's eyelashes fluttered as he tried to focus. "Where the hell else would I go?" he asked crankily, pushing at Jack's hand.

Jack's smile was tight-lipped. Keeping a hand under Daniel's head, he stood, grunting as he pulled Daniel up after him. "Let's go, buddy, can you put your arm around my shoulders?" He could. "All right, keep that arm there, okay? Can you walk?"

"I have two feet," Daniel said fuzzily, and promptly staggered to the left.

"Yeah, you do," Jack agreed, "two left feet. C'mon, Daniel, we're going this way," and he guided Daniel off to the right, heading back towards the Stargate.

When it rains, it pours. Or blizzards. Whatever. They hadn't gone thirty feet when the rumblings started again, and Jack could distantly see the chevrons lighting up on the ice age Gate. The ice beneath their feet started to tremble again, then shake, and the great sound of enormous slabs of ice tearing themselves apart was ominous. "Hoof it, Daniel!" Jack shouted and pulled the dizzy archaeologist after him.

And down they went. He just had a glimpse of the wormhole pulsing out of the rings before he was standing on air. _Well, crap_, Jack thought to himself as the ground dropped away from beneath them and all he saw was a sheet of white skimming before his eyes. It seemed like they fell for hours, but it must have been only seconds before he felt the shock of his feet hitting stone, his knees buckling under the impact, then his body as a whole slamming flat onto Daniel. Jack took a moment to pant, struggling for air, rolling off his friend, yet somehow trying to remain still, all at the same time: he didn't know if they were on another ledge, somewhere worse, somewhere better – he just didn't know. The ice around them gradually stilled again, and the only sound was the wind far overhead, and his and Daniel's gasping.

"Okay," Jack whispered. "We're done falling. This is good." Slowly, he turned his head to the left and saw Daniel's face next to his, eyes closed, lips parted. "Daniel, c'mon, wake up," Jack said, patting his cheek again. Daniel groaned, opened his eyes, and Jack was concerned to see how large and dark his pupils were, the normal brilliant blue of the iris a mere shadow of color around consuming blackness. "Good man," Jack said, forcing calm into his voice. "Stay awake, Daniel."

Daniel just breathed heavily, his gaze skittering across Jack's face, then beyond him. Then his eyes widened and he pointed with a shaky hand.

Turning his head, Jack saw painted stone, the colors shining through the ice that coated the walls. Yes, they were walls. Below his feet was a smooth, stone … floor. Sitting up with some confidence, Jack looked, gaped, stood, and gaped some more. Daniel, for his part, sat up, clutching at his head, but the befuddled look faded somewhat from his face. "So there ARE structures here," he slurred and got unsteadily to his feet.

Jack ducked back under Daniel's arm to help support him. "Yep," he commented calmly, his eyes intent on Daniel's face. "Looks like you were right after all, hot shot."

Daniel snorted and staggered over to peer more closely at the painted wall. His prescription sungoggles were gone, and when Jack searched through Daniel's front pockets, he found his glasses neatly shattered. Looked like Daniel would be seeing things a bit fuzzily until they got back to the SGC. Daniel didn't even flinch when he saw his broken spectacles in Jack's hand and merely asked, "Can you see any writing?"

Even though this was all way more Daniel's department than his, Jack hadn't spent seven years (well, eight, if you counted the Ascended year) with the man without picking up a few things. Pulling a hand-pick out of his gear belt, Jack scraped a bit where the ice seemed thinner. "Looks like Ancient," he said finally.

"You would know," Daniel said with a faint smile.

"I said it _looks_ like Ancient, Daniel, not that I can read it, not anymore. It's all gone, remember?" Jack reminded him, tapping at one temple.

All Daniel really had to do was cock an eyebrow and grin, and Jack rolled his eyes. "Shut up," he said mildly, and went back to scraping at the wall. Not like there was anything else to do. Teal'c and Carter had gone back to Earth and he and Daniel were stuck here until the rescue team got back. At least they were on more solid ground. Unfortunately, it looked like all they had for entertainment purposes was this one wall and a fifteen by fifteen square foot patch of icy stone. Ten minutes of intense poking and scraping and neither Daniel nor Jack were any closer to answering any of Daniel's questions.

When the amusement value of picking at Ancient walls had paled, Jack tucked his pick away and found a patch of floor farthest from the lip of the edge. He eased Daniel down to a seated position, then sat beside him, pulling him in close with an arm around his shoulders.

"How're you feeling?" he asked, and Daniel coughed, hard and wrenchingly. The coughing fit went on for a good fifteen seconds, which concerned Jack no end. When Daniel spat up a globule of blood that splattered on the stone at their feet, Jack's concern deepened into out-right worry. "What the hell," he said, and turned Daniel to look at him.

The face was still pale, the pupils still dilated, and blood trickled from the corner of Daniel's mouth. "What hurts?" Jack asked in a tone that brooked no evasion.

"I think I broke a rib or three," Daniel gasped, wiping at his mouth with the back of a gloved hand.

Levity, he needed levity. "Trust you to break something on a planet with nothing but snow."

Daniel grunted. "It was your fault," he said, trying to repress another coughing fit. "You fell on me."

"Pfft," Jack said in rejoinder, deciding not to mention his sore elbow – the elbow that, it seemed, had been the cause of Daniel's broken ribs.

Daniel rolled his eyes again, then put the bloodied glove to his own temple. "I was fine until this second fall," he stressed. "You _fell_ on me."

Jack broke out his canteen, got some water into Daniel, then pulled out his and Daniel's emergency blankets, wrapping them tightly about Daniel's shoulders. "Just don't go and die on me, okay?" he said, pulling Daniel close again and trying to get some warmth into Daniel's shivering body.

Daniel pondered this for a moment, coughing again. "You know," he said finally, "I don't think I've ever actually died _on_ you. It's been more of a proximity thing."

Jack huffed silent laughter into Daniel's hair and pulled him tighter, tucking Daniel's head under his chin.

They sat in silence for a while, a silence that was broken every once in a while by Jack poking Daniel to make sure he was still awake. It was a losing battle, though, Jack knew that. Daniel had lost too much blood from the head wound, and the broken ribs didn't help. He definitely had a concussion and there were, most likely, internal injuries. And if there was anything Jack knew, it was what it felt like to have internal bleeding when stuck on a lump of ice. Why couldn't they haven't gotten trapped on a tropical island, for crying out loud? As it was, his butt was numb and his nose had just given up sensory perception altogether.

"Jack," Daniel said softly, coughing again. He moved his head minutely, and Jack felt the soft hair brush against his cheek. "I gotta take a piss."

"Good idea," Jack said at once, and helped Daniel to stand. Hmmm, to the right or the left? Did it make a difference? With gentle hands, Jack guided Daniel over towards the right hand side of their ledge, helped Daniel fumble his zipper open, and the two of them let go over the edge. "Never thought I'd actually get a chance to piss on the Ancients," Jack said thoughtfully, tucking back in. As soon as his bladder was empty, the heat started going back to the extremities that needed it most – he could almost feel his nose, now. Weird, what the human physiology will do. Daniel sighed with relief, too, and a flush of pink came back into his cheeks.

"Back to our veranda," Jack said, and within minutes they were tucked back together, this time with Jack under the blankets as well to help keep Daniel warm. "Tell me about what you were like before you came to the SGC," he said softly to Daniel. Daniel gurgled a protest and tried to burrow further into Jack's parka, but Jack was having none of that. "You've got to stay awake, Daniel," he said calmly. "You've lost a lot of blood, and I can't have you falling asleep on me. Talk to me."

Daniel sighed and tried to sit up a little straighter while Jack checked his temperature and breathing under the guise of adjusting Daniel's position to something approximating comfort. Daniel's skin was icy, emitting little or no heat. Resting a hand on one thigh, Jack could feel nothing but skin that was cold and stiff. "Dammit," he whispered, and pulled Daniel even closer, winding his legs through Daniel's to try to transmit some of his own warmth.

"I was a geek," Daniel murmured into Jack's neck, his eyes slowly closing. Daniel's nose was a frigid button against Jack's Adam's apple. "Just like I am now. But I was gangly. Like a giraffe, but with long hair and glasses. I studied a lot."

"No partying?" Jack asked, smoothing Daniel's hair and pulling his hood up around his ears.

"Sometimes," Daniel sighed in answer. "Sometimes, I'd let it rip. There's a couple of nights that I don't remember. Much."

"You dog, you," Jack commented, a smile pulling at his mouth. "Were you a ladies' man?"

Daniel snuffled into his neck with amusement. "Not quite. But I got some … experiences, shall we say. I got an idea of what to do." His voice trailed off for a bit, and when he spoke again, his voice was almost dreamy. "I was in love with the world when I was in college. I felt free, I wasn't trapped anymore. No more trappings. I loved everything I was doing."

"And I'm betting you got some lovin' right back," Jack said confidently.

Daniel's only answer was a snort.

"So how many were there?" Jack asked, his brows furrowing. This was a side of Daniel he'd never thought about, what he must've been like when he was finally free of the foster homes and allowed to start choosing his own way in the world, to let that incredible mind loose on the sacred halls of academia.

"Four," Daniel replied, and elaborated, almost chanting, "There was Jane, and Holly, and Jesse, and Fred."

Jack was more than startled. "Fred?"

"Winifred," Daniel said, his voice softening even more. Jack was starting to wonder just how much of Daniel was in the here and now, and shifted again, pulling Daniel up and making him open his eyes.

"Ahhh, Fred," Jack repeated, and felt a vague ping of something like jealousy. Huh? "Lovely ladies all?"

"I am nothing if not a man of excellent taste," Daniel said agreeably, and patted Jack's arm clumsily, letting his gloved hand rest on the layers of cloth actually separating their skin. Again, huh?

"If you call that horrible duffle coat you used to have an indication of taste. What else did you do in college?" Jack asked, his curiosity more than piqued. Honestly, he couldn't conceive of a long-limbed and laughing Daniel Jackson hitting on the ladies with such apparent success.

"What do you think, Jack?" Daniel sounded more like himself for a moment. "I studied. Lots of it. Went to bookstores, went to concerts, the usual stuff."

"Sounds kind of boring," Jack said, almost wistfully. It sounded so - normal. And while he knew Daniel's life had been anything but normal, by his own straight-laced, militaristic definition, it still sounded so attractive, so soothing.

"Yeeahhh," Daniel drawled. "A little, I suppose, if you don't like books and concerts and coffee."

"Aww, and here I was thinking you were a little hippy, with all your free love."

"Nope," replied Daniel, and there was a long pause again. "Not a hippie. Lots of free love. But no hippies. I wore a sweater vest." His voice trailed off on a deep sigh that sounded like a preface to falling into deep sleep.

"No!" Jack said sharply, jerking Daniel in his arms.

"Ow!" Daniel complained, his eyes flying open as he focused enough to glare at Jack. "That hurt!"

"Good," Jack said flatly, jerking Daniel again until they were both ramrod straight against the Ancient wall. "If I have to smack you around a few times, Daniel, I will. You are not falling asleep."

Daniel's head was already drooping. "Ooo, Jack smacking," he said with a mouth that sounded like it was full of mush. "That sounds right up your alley. Lots of smackin'."

Jack's eyebrows lurched together. Was that a slam? "What do you mean by that?" he asked testily.

"C'mon, Jack," Daniel said, his head wobbling up so he could look Jack straight in the eye. "It's not like you're a U.N. diplomat, for heaven's sake. You shoot things up, make 'em go boom."

Jack was torn between anger and amusement. "Make 'em go boom?" he repeated incredulously.

"Badda-bing, badda-boom," Daniel elaborated placidly. Blood was starting to trickle down his face again from the wound in his forehead, and a little more had edged out of the corner of his mouth.

How long did it take for someone to come back with a bunch of rope, for God's sake? A quick check at his watch showed him that Carter and Teal'c had only been gone for … an hour. And he knew it would take a little more time than that to get a full team together with all the equipment needed, for them to come back through the Gate – God, don't let the ice shift again – find them, get them out … while Daniel quietly bled, inside and out, and his mind wandered off to some Lesion Fields where Jack could not follow. Wait, lesion couldn't be right. Why didn't he ever really _listen_ when Daniel was babbling ad nauseum about mythology in their daily briefings?

"Yes," he said, mopping at the blood. "I make things go boom. It's true. It's what I do."

"But you're exceedingly good at it," Daniel said hesitantly, as if not sure that Jack would take it as a compliment.

"Well, thank you, Daniel," Jack said, deciding that he _should_ take it as a compliment, for both their sakes. Anything else right now would mean an argument and that would just be too … warming. Ha. Argument it was. "Thank you so much for pointing out my complete lack of intelligence. So I'm nothing more than a grunt to you, is that it?"

"Whah?" Daniel gasped, and he really _focused_ for the first time since he'd gotten his head whacked. "I never said that!"

"You just did!" Jack pointed out untruthfully. Red was flooding into Daniel's cheeks, sitting on those high cheekbones in two burning spots of color. "I'm the muscle of the team, that's what you're saying. I'm just along because _someone_ has to make all the macho manly decisions and that's not your area of expertise." Oops. Did he push too far with that one?

Daniel gasped and he pushed away from Jack – at least tried to, but Jack was keeping him in close quarters with arms and legs entwined under the emergency blankets. "Only you, Jack, would go down that path of complete and utter misconception," he said angrily.

"So now you're calling me a liar?"

"God!" Daniel shouted and succeeded in pushing away from Jack hard enough to topple right over onto his side. More ice and snow drifted down. Daniel coughed, deeply, and more blood decorated the Ancient floor.

Jack closed his eyes. He was really not doing a good job of this. He was trying to keep Daniel awake and warm the best ways he could, but he seemed to be succeeding only in injuring Daniel further. "Come 'ere," he said, repentant, and pulled Daniel back to him, wrapping them both up again. "Warmer?" he asked.

Daniel inhaled to say something – something razor-sharp, Jack was sure – then stopped himself. "You son of a bitch," he said finally, and Jack could feel his body shaking with laughter.

"Well, it worked for about ten minutes," Jack said cheerfully as he pulled out his canteen and got some more water into Daniel.

"Yeah," Daniel breathed, and his head settled on Jack's shoulder. "Play twenty questions with me, Jack."

He was asking for help. He knew how desperate his situation really was. Jack pushed on the door in his mind where the freak-outs and worries were trying to stage a prison break. Taking a deep, controlling breath, Jack said, "Allrighty. I'm thinking of something."

"Animal?"

"Depends on which planet."

Daniel chuffed amusement. "Okay, so it's not an Earth animal?"

"I didn't say that."

Daniel chuffed again, too familiar with Jack and his weird sense of humor. "You suck at this. It's Teal'c."

"Damn." They were silent for a few minutes while Jack tried to come up with something clever, but all he could think about was how shallow Daniel's breath was getting. "Daniel, so help me, if Oma shows her glowy white ass around here, I'm going to have some very firm words to say to her."

"Now that's a smackdown I'd like to see," Daniel said dreamily, "'cause you'd kick the everlasting crap out of her."

Jack grinned down at him, a gloved finger rising to stroke a pale cheek. "You bet your sweet ass I would."

"Sometimes … I wish you had, the first time," Daniel said quietly.

Jack stilled. "What?"

"There was no way my body would have healed. I know that. It was the best thing I did, going." A long pause. "Dying. But I didn't want to. Not then." Daniel's voice grew fainter. "Not ever. But I was tired, so tired … of trying to find my place. I got so tired of searching." A longer pause, a deep breath, then, "At least … by Ascending … I was still … _here_ … and could keep … " A big sigh, then, "trying … "

"Ah, hell, Daniel." Jack pulled Daniel's head closer to his and rested his cheek on the soft crown of hair. Daniel didn't answer, his breath barely escaping his cold lips.

"No," Jack said flatly. "No." He pulled Daniel up tighter, put his fingers to his neck to feel for a pulse. It was there, but slow, weak. "No, damn you. _You keep trying_. Try now. Try here. Daniel!" No response. "Daniel! By God, if you die, I'm coming after you one way or another. Do you hear me? _You keep trying_. Come on!" He slapped at Daniel's cheeks, once, twice, and Daniel stirred briefly. "_You keep trying_, goddammit. Because this time, no, I won't let you go without a fight." And it was like the bottom fell out of his heart, and he knew. He didn't know how to name it exactly, didn't know what it specifically meant, but the fear and panic that rose in his throat spurred him to vocalize what he hadn't even considered a minute before. "I can't do this without you, Daniel," Jack whispered. "I can't. Not again. You go, I go. I can't … I can't not have you in my life again. The first hundred times nearly killed me. But this time, if you do this to me again, I'll … I can't do this without you." And it became a mantra _youkeeptrying don'tyoustoptrying ican'tdothiswithoutyou youkeeptrying_, over and over, his left-hand fingers on Daniel's carotid artery, the other fingers rubbing briskly up and down his body, trying to coax warmth back into the cold, slack limbs. _Youkeeptrying youdon'tstoptrying don'tyouleavemeagain_. Over and over, stuttering and tripping on the words, frantic, panicked, still rubbing, trying to keep life in the body. "I need you," Jack whispered.

The pulse point below his freezing fingers thumped, strengthened. Steadied. The skin warmed to his touch. And Jack dropped his head to his chest and cried for the first time since Charlie had died.

11


	2. Chapter 2 Status Quo

Everything was so status quo, it was almost painful. There was the usual rescue, the usual technobabble from Carter about the Gate, the usual eyebrow gymnastics in which Teal'c invested his entire conversational repertoire, the usual clear, efficient instructions from Janet Fraiser that got Daniel into surgery and him, O'Neill, into heated blankets and warmed up toasty-fine. Somehow, he didn't doubt that Daniel would come through this particular crisis with no real damage beyond a few surgical scars, just more souvenirs to add to the bullet-hole scars, the staff-blast scars, the appendectomy scar. Now that he, O'Neill, had had his little epiphany on that ice cube of a planet, things had the nerve to just grind along in the usual status quo fashion. Or what passed for status quo at the SGC.

He was actually sort of surprised that things were so calm around him, as if his little emotional revelation should have been reflected by fireworks or symphonies or at least the dull throb of doom-ish drums. He was certainly surprised that his thoughts weren't obvious and readable, scrolling across his forehead in neon letters. Nobody was staring, no one was whispering, no one was commenting or laughing that Jack O'Neill, hard-ass colonel of the SGC and its flagship team, had a "need" for a teammate. And that teammate wasn't the blonde genius with the internal plumbing.

Need. Huh. He'd said "I need you," and he could swear it was him saying those words that had brought Daniel back from that dark precipice once again. Honestly, the man had more lives than five cats put together. Five cranky, hyper-intelligent, caffeine-dependent, snarky cats with more curiosity than any _ten _felines could hope for. Why now? Really, Daniel had died at least four or five times, not counting being Ascended. He was going to have to work on that whole Ascended thing. Had Daniel really, truly been dead? Jack had thrown a shoe through him, that seemed pretty dead, but then again, Daniel was the man who accidentally whomped into other dimensions by looking at crystal paperweights. Maybe Ascended wasn't really dead …

Dammit. What had he been thinking about? Right. Need.

Need.

Such a tiny word to bear so much weight. Need wasn't just a want, it was a necessity, something without which one could not live. Need was a built-in thing, you couldn't ignore need, need was breathing and sleeping and was as pertinent to survival as water in a searing desert. Need was what kept the body going, kept the psyche going, the need for bodily sustenance, and then the need for mental and emotional sustenance. Over the years, he'd gotten used to needing things and generally being able to assuage the burning, if not outright satiate himself.

And he needed Daniel. Which was stupid, of course he needed Daniel, he'd always needed Daniel. Daniel was, in some weird, how-sad-for-Daniel kind of way, his better half. They were so unalike as to make oil and water look like best friends, but they still clicked and rocked along at a clip that no one else could match.

So why now? Why figure out now that he needed Daniel? Honestly, today was no different than any other time Daniel had shuffled off this mortal coil. In fact, truthfully, it was one of Daniel's less spectacular methods of dying. Quite boring, actually.

It was just the same ol', same ol'. Daniel had died, Daniel had risen, Daniel had come again. No big deal, right? Although that whole Ascension thing had really staggered Jack for a bit. He had to admit he'd gotten Forbidding Silences down to an art form, and he couldn't blame Jonas Quinn for looking relieved that he could go home to Kelowna. So he'd weathered the deaths, the No Daniel-ness of it all. Not well, but he'd weathered it.

So why did getting stranded on a ball of ice for a few hours knock him for a loop? Was he a camel who'd just been thrashed soundly with the very last straw? A straw with a trinium core, for God's sake. This was That Straw, that Final Push, and all he could think about was that losing Daniel, not having Daniel in his life, scared him to his back teeth. Which was stupid. He hadn't _had_ Daniel in his life for a whole year, and he'd lived, he'd survived just fine, thank you very much.

Hadn't he?

Um. Well. To be honest, he wasn't sure. Okay, if he was going to be honest, he hadn't survived just fine. Poor Jonas. Poor, forgiveness-seeking Jonas. The kid had been in a lose-lose situation from the word "go." His cowardice had led to Daniel having to play hero, led to Daniel sacrificing his own life, had led to Daniel being painted with a traitorous brush, when really, it had been Jonas's fault, Jonas's cowardice, Jonas's …

Let's not go there again, shall we? Over. Done with. Jonas did all right eventually, he showed he had a certain amount of moxie, and now he's gone, Daniel is back, in fact – YES. He was out of surgery.

Which meant he, Jack O'Neill, was fine. Just fine, thank you very much.

Jack pulled his warm blankets further up around his ears and listened to the gossiping nurses hustling past, variations of "It's the eyes, they're just so blue" and "How many times has he died?" You know, the usual. Jack felt a certain smugness when he thought about the fact that Daniel was his teammate and he got to look at those blue eyes all the time, as much as he wanted. Usually, those eyes were somewhat flinty with irritation and humor, but they were his to look into, nonetheless, and their owner was at his beck and call.

Not that Daniel ever really hearkened to that beck and call, but Jack gave it everything he could, when he could.

Janet Fraiser came by Jack's bedside, checked his temperature, got some more blankets on him, and rolled her eyes when Jack asked if he could see Daniel. "He's unconscious, Colonel," Janet said, tucking the extra blankets around Jack's shoulders. "He's just been through surgery."

"And he'll be fine, I know," Jack said, sitting up, shedding blankets and pillows. "So lemme see him."

Janet just gave him _That Look_ for a few moments, then shrugged and pointed at the far end of the room. "He's in his usual bed," she said, giving up. Jack raised an amused eyebrow. He wasn't the only one who was getting a little blasé about Daniel and Death. "Just don't disturb him, he needs his rest – "

"Yadda, yadda," Jack said unrepentantly, grinning at Janet, who just shook her head and shooed him away. Gathering his blankets back around him, Jack shuffled down to the far end of the infirmary, slumping into his usual seat by Daniel's bedside, taking Daniel's lax hand in his, and sighing deeply. With his back to the infirmary, Jack could allow himself to relax, to let the adrenaline flow out of him. Really, it was sometimes incredibly tiring being Daniel's oil. Water. Whichever.

Idly, he traced the bones in the back of Daniel's hand, thinking about going fishing. No, maybe not. It was winter in the United States, and anything to do with ice wasn't high on his list right now. And he doubted they'd get enough leave to go anywhere warm, like Mexico, or Peru. Rats, bats and little kittens. He could've taken Daniel, gotten him into a pair of shorts and had him relaxing by a pool. Well, knowing Daniel, he'd have his nose in a book, and because it'd be a rare book, he'd be as far from the pool as possible, but he'd be outside, at least. For a moment, Jack lingered on the idea of hot sands, blue-green waters, alcoholic drinks, and making rude comments with Daniel about the nude sunbathers. Then he shook his head and sighed again. If wishes were horses …

Daniel stirred, groaning a bit, and those blue eyes blinked, looked a bit cross-eyed for a moment, then focused blearily on Jack. "Again?" he said hoarsely.

Jack almost laughed, and his heart did something weird. Maybe he wasn't all warmed up from Glacier Planet, after all. "Yeah," he said, "again." Daniel closed his eyes for a moment, and Jack went for the cup of ice chips. As he fed them to Daniel, he asked, "You gonna stop making a habit of this?"

Daniel raised an eyebrow in question. "What, the dying, or the coming back to life?"

Jack did laugh that time, brief and quiet. "Well, both, preferably after a final Back-to-Life episode."

"I'll work on it," Daniel said soberly, his eyes filled with an amusement his words belied. Jack felt his heart do that weird thing again. He was going to have to ask Fraiser about that. Daniel put a hand on Jack's arm, pulling gently on the blankets swaddled around the older man. "You all right?" he asked.

Jack nodded. "Yeah," he said, "got a little Frosty the Snowman there for a bit, but I should be keeping all my fingers and toes."

"Excellent," Daniel said, his hand slipping down to the coverlet. Jack took that long-fingered hand back into his own and began again the idle stroking of bones and sinews. "Although," Daniel continued, "if you had only three fingers on each hand, you really could be Homer Simpson."

"Ew," Jack replied amiably and squeezed Daniel's hand, receiving an answering squeeze in response.

Just like Janet, to poke her head in now, when they were rolling along with a nice comfortable moment, all nice and mellow. "Colonel," she said firmly, injecting a fat syringe of morphine into Daniel's IV, "he's got to rest now. He just came out of surgery."

Jack looked at Daniel and tilted his head at the doctor. "Gotta go," he said, and Daniel smiled. "I'll see you soon."

"If I must," Daniel said, his smile widening, then promptly fell asleep.

Jack had to give it to Daniel, he really did. He got the team enough downtime every couple of months or so to let them take care of other business. It was just a shame that it always came at Daniel's expense. Although, with the way Daniel immediately stuck his nose in a dusty book as soon as he was allowed to sit up in bed, Jack could almost think Daniel died deliberately, just so he could catch up on his own research.

Jack did his best to indulge Daniel, though, dropping in at odd times, dodging Janet and her merry band of nurses, bringing Daniel magazines and coffee. Hence needing to dodge Janet – coffee was SO not on her Allowed Foods list. Daniel would smile his thanks, verbally spar with Jack briefly, then either fall asleep or go back to his moldy book. Even if Daniel had finished with him for the time being, for whatever reason, Jack would sometimes stay and read a fishing magazine, making sure to point out a particularly nifty hook or creel just so that Daniel wouldn't forget him.

Expecting the usual, a week after Daniel's surgery, Jack realized he shouldn't have been surprised to hear Daniel before he even saw him. No bonhomie moments around the infirmary bed today.

"No," Daniel was saying, "I do _not_ need to go to a VIP room, I need to go home. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

Oh, dear. When Janet had asked him earlier if he'd look after Daniel in a VIP room, and he'd agreed, he hadn't thought she'd get the hyperactive little coffee-addict all riled up first before he was transferred. Jack had thought she'd meant call Daniel every once in a while, drop in once a day, bring him more magazines, make sure he took all his meds. He certainly didn't want a caffeine-deprived _philologist_, for God's sake, laid out and bitching at him in twenty-five different languages every time he came to visit. Jack shuddered. He didn't want that, and he was pretty damned sure he didn't _need_ that, either.

"Daniel, you're not going home. You're lucky I'm letting you get as far as a VIP room," Janet said, almost angrily, and as he came into the room, Jack saw that she was, indeed, just about fed up with Dr. Jackson.

"Janet," Daniel said exasperatedly, "I don't _need_ babysit – "

Janet was downright glaring at him now. "No," she said, "and that's final. VIP or nothing."

Daniel saw Jack and turned his pleading eyes on him. "Jack, tell her, I'm perfectly – "

"Daniel," Jack interrupted, "if the good doctor thinks you're not well enough to go home, then you're not."

"But – " Daniel stuttered. "But – "

Janet Fraiser had that gleam in her eye. "No buts, Daniel," she said triumphantly, and started bagging Daniel's meds. Handing the brown paper bag to Jack, she told him, "I'm going to check in on him in a couple of hours, but this'll get him started."

"What's that for, the care and feeding of pissed-off Jacksons?" Daniel groused, easing to his feet. Jack grabbed his elbow and looked at Janet.

"And you're going in a wheelchair," Janet said, and without further ado, she had Daniel on his butt in the vinyl seat and his feet in the metal rests. She didn't get much of a fight out of him, really – all his energy had gone into his verbal argument and the last vestige of a glare shot in her direction before Jack whisked him out of the infirmary and up to one of the VIP rooms.

Oh, dear. What had Jack been thinking? He was going to have to start sneaking in even _more_ coffee now. He really didn't need this. "One coffee a day," he told Daniel abruptly, and suffered a glare of his own.

"Fine," Daniel snapped, and his face paled with the effort to get out of his wheelchair. "Just get me in bed."

"Alright, Grumpypants, let's get you cozy," Jack said, and helped Daniel swing his legs under the covers, propping him up on a pile of pillows like an invalid. Well, he was an invalid, duh, Jack.

"Stop – " Daniel began, then inhaled sharply, putting a hand to his ribs.

"Uh-huh," Jack said, and rummaged through the bag. "Here," he said, slapping a couple of pills in Daniel's hand. "Take these."

"They'll make me stupid," Daniel said grouchily, but downed them anyway while Jack futzed around the room.

"Couldn't happen in a million years," Jack replied, and sat on the edge of Daniel's bed. "You've got water there, you've got your pills – don't forget to take the amoxycillin in an hour, and the cough suppressant. And I've brought you a couple of books from your lab."

Daniel eyed him suspiciously, then inspected the proffered tomes. "Hmph," was all he said, and Jack knew he'd picked the right ones.

Jack stood. "Gonna be all right?" He grabbed Daniel's toes and wiggled them.

Daniel nodded, a book already open on his lap.

"Then, I'll be back in a couple of hours," Jack said, and left Daniel to his recuperating.

It was more like an hour. He came back to find Daniel staggering back to his bed after a trip to the bathroom. "You couldn't wait?" Jack snapped, helping Daniel back under the covers.

"Well, NO," Daniel retorted, settling with a relieved sigh into the pillows. "Don't you have anything to _do_?" he asked crabbily.

"Not really," Jack replied and pulled up one of the armchairs to Daniel's bedside so he could prop his feet up on the mattress. Daniel glared at the offending appendages but wisely said nothing. From experience, this was one habit he'd have to tolerate. "And if you're not a good boy," Jack continued, "I'll make you watch Simpsons episodes. I brought my DVDs."

Daniel groaned. "Fine, I'll be good." He opened a thick, dusty book and Jack pulled a magazine out of his back pocket.

The silence lasted about five minutes. "Whatcha reading?" Jack asked, looking up from his MAD magazine, as if he hadn't picked out those books for Daniel himself, painstakingly figuring out which ones Daniel was using for his latest research project.

Daniel closed his eyes in brief irritation. "A book," he said without looking up.

"What book?"

The eyes closed again for a whole ten seconds – Jack timed it. "A book with _words_," Daniel said finally, still not looking up.

"Oh. Wanna play chess?"

This time, Daniel did look up, his blue eyes surprisingly piercing beneath a layer of Vicodin dopiness. "How is this helping me rest?"

"I'm keeping your brain agile and your body still." Jack bounced up from his chair, went to the entertainment cabinet, and came back with a decent-looking chess set. He nudged Daniel's knees over and set up the game on the mattress.

"Jack, I can't keep bending over like this," Daniel said, somewhat breathlessly, after only five moves. It was true, he was pale again, and sweat was beading on his forehead. One hand seemed permanently clutched to his abdomen where his surgical scars were healing.

"All right, Simpsons it is, then," Jack said, and he transferred the half-played game to the side table and got the TV and DVD player set up. Then he nudged Daniel over in the king-sized bed and propped up on the pillows with him. Daniel looked like he either wanted to laugh or cry and was stuck somewhere in between.

"You love the Simpsons," Jack said confidently, clicking the PLAY button.

"Actually," said Daniel ruefully, settling down into his pillows and obviously consigning himself to his fate, "I tolerate the Simpsons, for your sake."

Jack made a "pshaw" kind of sound and turned up the volume on the TV.

Jack wouldn't even let him sneak moments with his book, especially after the sneezing, coughing fit. While Homer was throttling Bart, Daniel had tried to read a couple of pages from something old and yellowed. A particularly dense whoosh of dust had assaulted Daniel's nose and Jack actually had to hold him to the bed while he coughed, deeply and painfully, his body starting forward, his hands pressing against his own chest as if trying to keep his lungs in his body. When the coughing fit had finally passed, Daniel simply lay back in Jack's arms for a moment, breathing spastically and wiping the tears out of his eyes. "Gah," Daniel groaned. He coughed again, obviously trying to restrain the spasm reflexes of his pectoral muscles. Jack helped him sip some water, then gave him a dose of cough suppressant and a couple more pills.

"They won't make you stupid," Jack said, accurately reading the look in Daniel's eyes. "We've been over this. You need them to help relax your muscles so you don't go through that again." Meekly, Daniel popped the pills, sucked down the water, and relaxed back into Jack, apparently not minding in the least that some of his pillows had become flesh and bone Irishman.

Gently, Jack rubbed a hand up and down Daniel's shoulder, gently soothing the hot flesh beneath the flannel pajama shirt, feeling the moment become less about humor and more about comfort, Daniel's warm and solid body slowly becoming more relaxed against his chest. "No more books," he said quietly, "unless it's a brand new Dean Koontz."

Daniel shuddered delicately. "Why are you torturing me?" he whispered, amused.

"No more smelly, dusty books," Jack elaborated firmly, leaning his cheek on Daniel's hair, the volume on the Simpsons turned down, the garish cartoon colors flickering weirdly over the grey walls of the SGC VIP suite.

"No more teacher's dirty looks?" Daniel countered, and Jack could feel Daniel's smile light up the room without even needing to see it. Dammit, there went his heart again. What the hell?

"Don't get sassy with me, young man," Jack said in a mock stern voice. "Or I'll have to take a ruler to you."

"What if I like it?" Daniel asked, his voice drowsy and sort of stupidly sassy. The drugs were taking effect.

"Well, we'll just have to see about that, won't we, Dr. Jackson?" Jack replied, and kissed Daniel's forehead.

Hel-lo. The silence was immediate, deep, and completely freaky. Daniel didn't move. It was the absence of movement, really, that made Jack so very aware of Daniel's body lined up with his, the smell of bland, hospital shampoo in Daniel's hair, the bulge of bicep under his stroking hand. "Uh," Jack said intelligently, his brain completely blank. He could swear he heard white noise coming from his own frontal lobes.

Daniel didn't answer. It took Jack a moment to realize that Daniel probably hadn't even heard his last comment – he was dead asleep. A huge sigh of relief swept through Jack, straight from his toes to his nose and he relaxed, unsure of what that moment had been all about, but damn glad he didn't have to explain it right this very second. His eyes fixed on the TV screen, he smiled, then let his own eyes drift closed, the warm scent of Daniel in his nose, his body loose and comfortable. All he really knew was that he was awash in warm fuzzies and couldn't think of any better place to be than right where he was, holding what he needed. Wasn't there a name for this that got nasty looks from Republicans? Should he care? Jack wasn't one for heavy-duty introspection, and he certainly resented the vague, paranoid idea that he should regulate his thoughts and his heart, especially this late in the game. He'd done more than enough to warrant himself some warm fuzzies along the way. From Day One, his and Daniel's relationship had transcended all expected societal strictures to the point where they were so entangled in each other, it was hard to know where one of them ended and the other began. This is what they were, you couldn't name it, you couldn't label it, it had nothing to do with anything except the fact that something in each of them recognized something in the other and called it Home. It was a state of being, a unit that was JackandDaniel, DanielandJack. As Jack slid deeper into sleep, it was as if the layers of bullshit and confusion peeled quietly back from his mind and just vanished like smoke, and Jack knew that Daniel wasn't just his better half … he was his Siamese twin, joined at the mind, joined at the … well, at the heart? Whatever, he didn't care – he was right where he needed to be.

An hour later, Janet popped into Daniel's VIP suite and paused in the doorway, her hand on the doorknob. The TV showed a bouncing DVD insignia that blipped like a video game around the screen, and the bedside lamp was shining a wheat-mellow light over the two sleeping figures in the bed. Daniel was wrapped up in his blankets, half reclining on Jack, and half reclining on a huge wad of pillows. Jack had his arms around Daniel: his left hand rested on Daniel's left shoulder, and the right was holding Daniel's right hand to his heart. Jack's chin rested against Daniel's forehead. They were both completely zonked out.

Janet just stood for a moment, looking at the two men, thinking about their years together, everything they'd suffered together, all their successes, their triumphs, their sorrows. And how this didn't surprise her in the slightest. The bond between all four SG-1 team members was something most people couldn't understand, and the ties between these two men in particular were completely beyond earthly comprehension. "Status quo," she murmured, and closed the door behind her as she left them sleeping.

8


	3. Chapter 3 Little Things

"Daniel?" Jack called softly around the edge of the door. He slid his key from the lock and opened the door a bit further. He didn't want to be too loud on the off-hand chance that Daniel was actually sleeping. Daniel had been home from his convalescence in the Mountain for only a couple of days, under the strictest of instructions from Dr. Fraiser to take it easy for another week. Knowing his team member, Jack had had to stop by to check on Daniel. The spare key Daniel had given him came in handy on so many occasions when it needed to be seen if Daniel was pushing himself too hard, too fast. And Jack refused to relinquish the key, and if it was forcibly taken from him, he surrendered in the happy knowledge that he'd made several spares, and would continue to make spares for as long as they needed to play the game.

Nope, he found Daniel brushing his teeth before getting into the shower, wrapped in a ratty blue bathrobe and humming the theme from Masterpiece Theatre. Daniel smiled in greeting through a mouthful of toothpaste, and said something minty and inarticulate.

Grinning, Jack leaned a hip against the doorjamb. "You ever gonna throw that bathrobe out?" he asked critically, eyeing frayed hem and cuffs.

Daniel glared and spat into the basin, clearly expressing his thoughts on Jack's sartorial commentary. "Not as long as you continue to loathe it so openly," he retorted finally, spitting again.

"Mm," was Jack's retort, knowing this was a battle he could only lose. Daniel had had this same bathrobe for years. Jack was of the opinion that it was held together by the sheer force of Daniel's determination and hot glue.

"I'll just go make some coffee," he said as Daniel pointedly pulled the shower curtain and glared at Jack over his shoulder.

"You do that," Daniel said firmly, and started to slide out of the bathrobe.

Whatever his new outlook on life and Daniel, Jack didn't feel up to this much so soon, and beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen.

To start with, to make things as normal as possible, he brewed up a batch of toxic coffee for his teammate, just the way he liked it. He drank a cup for himself while he waited, amused by the humming he heard (now it was the National Geographic theme), muffled by gallons of water, and wondered just how long Daniel thought he could stay in there before his pores completely opened up and his brains oozed out. Then the shower shut off, the bathroom door opened, the bedroom door shut, and there was silence. Lots and lots of silence.

He could take the silence for a little bit. It gave him more time to think. He felt completely naked in the face of his Glacier Planet realization, and then his subsequent slumber at Daniel's side in the VIP room. While everything seemed to click into place, like a Rubik's Cube finally giving up its puzzling ghost, he was still floundering in both the newness and his lack of panic at the newness. Really, if he was panicking at anything, it was the fact that he wasn't panicking. Whether this was due to his training, his inherent insouciance in the face of all things supposedly illegal and not good for him, or his basic impatience, he wasn't sure.

Daniel gave him a jolt. In the most unsappy of ways that he could express, Daniel jazzed him. He was argumentative, stubborn, hyperintelligent, constantly curious to the point of death (literally), so open-hearted and open-minded that he made Jack's hair hurt, and yet, he was everything Jack needed to exist and breathe and think he might see another day.

This wasn't easy. It wasn't hard. The duality, the complexity, and giddy rush of joy this paradox gave him was something he'd never thought he'd experience. This was so much different from Sara, it wasn't even in the same library, let alone the same book or page.

He didn't even have time – and yet he had all the time in the world – to wonder if Daniel could feel even a fraction of what he felt. It was as if it was a Given, a Preordained Determinate that Daniel was in the same place he was, and if Jack had learned anything in his seven – eight – _whatever_, in all the years since he'd first gone through the Stargate, it was that if something was meant to be, it would damn well happen and _be_, so, please, keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.

Finally, his curiosity got the best of him, and Jack meandered down the hallway to Daniel's bedroom, a fresh cup of coffee – made to exacting, multi-PhD standards – in hand. He knocked softly, then slowly opened the bedroom door. This afternoon was, apparently, all about listening at doors and hoping he was welcomed when he snuck in.

Daniel was asleep. Sweatpants on, socks on, horrific green-and-yellow flannel shirt on but not buttoned, he was sprawled out on his bed like he'd been dropped from a height, his right leg hanging off the bed, toes almost brushing the hardwood floor, arms outflung, head turned into the pillow beneath him. Jack leaned against the doorframe and felt a certain peace steal over him. The room was a study in light and shadow as twilight quietly fell, shafts of pale sunlight striping the bed, Daniel's thigh, his cheek. The world seemed so very far away.

With a push of his hip, Jack moved away from the door and into the bedroom, grabbing the white down comforter from the foot of the bed. Putting the coffee cup on the bedside table, he took the long, slender foot that was dangling to the floor and eased it under the comforter. Daniel sighed in his sleep, a deep and relaxed sound, his hands tucking up under his pillow on either side of his head.

Jack smiled fondly, feeling that rush of warmth again, a besotted feeling that left him useless as a wet towel, then paused in his bedclothing ministrations. His eyes caught sight of the scars that liberally decorated Daniel's torso, framed by the faded, threadbare edges of the open flannel shirt. Without thinking, without wondering, simply following the burst of heat that had suddenly blossomed behind his ribcage, Jack sat next to Daniel so they were hip to hip. With his right hand, he tenderly traced the appendectomy scar on the plane of Daniel's stomach, directly above the right hipbone. It was so long healed, it was so many years healed, but the memories that were bound up with that little strip of shiny flesh were still fresh in Jack's memory. The scar was smooth beneath his fingers, slightly knotted at the ends. Then his hand drifted up to the healing incisions, souvenirs of their recent trip to Glacier Planet, barely touching the wounds, but paying them their due nonetheless. Beyond that, he traced another scar along the fourth left rib, then another above that, his movements slow, ghosting over the warm skin.

It was a wonder. _This man_ was a wonder. Each scar was precious to Jack, he realized, thumbing the ladder of a scar from a dragging knife wound and its subsequent stitches. Each one was a badge of honor, inscribed bone deep, cell deep, part and parcel of the man who had become a warrior in body, as well as in intellect. Jack's thoughts came heavy and dragging, as if they were thought by someone else, then presented to him as a _fait accompli_ of his own internal processes, yet the emotion that accompanied that Moebial twist of noncompos mentis put every confused and raw thought to a gentle rest. While he was laden with the realizations of this new and completely different self, the freedom those realizations brought sent him skimming, trustingly, without burden.

The sound of Daniel's breathing changed, the deep, easy susurrations of air shifting to something tenser, more controlled. Jack looked up to see that Daniel was awake, eyes clear of his usual sleepy befuddlement. Those blue eyes were the color of periwinkle, all unspoken questions and soft bewilderment, the thick eyebrows arched in puzzlement. Jack just shook his head slightly, that sense of peace filling him further, that relief that came with the surrender of logic, and Daniel relaxed under his hand. His arms slid down from the pillow, resting atop the comforter, his left hand loose and alone, his right hand resting easily on Jack's right thigh.

The pads of his fingertips a hair's breadth above Daniel's skin, Jack moved his hand up over a pectoral muscle, watching in quiet fascination and satisfaction as the muscles bunched and the skin prickled, goosebumps following his passage as Jack pressed his forefinger along the sternum and up to that strong neck, thumb brushing over the ivory curve of collarbone. It was like a meditation, this thorough exploration of his friend's flesh and bone, with no direct goal, no driving purpose but to understand, to the core, what it felt like to be this close to this person who meant so very much, and had, for so very long. Again, a stab of reality, of logic, of the bare and agonizing truth that his heart, his brain and his soul had done an about-face on Glacier Planet, and things would never, could never, be the same, and what might come in the next minute, hour, or day, scared him to death with its perfect possibilities and its endless questions.

He looked at Daniel again, and the periwinkle blue had deepened to something blue-gray, like the wing of a mourning dove, watchful but trusting. Deepening the pressure of his hand, Jack smoothed down the soft chambray of the plaid shirt, down Daniel's left arm, thumb skidding over the concavity of the inside of the elbow, the fuzzy cloth ending, the tenderness of skin beginning. His palm was rough against the thinner skin on the inside of the wrist, and he moved the heel of his hand over the blue vein, the tautness of sinew and tendon locking together where muscle and blood became joint and bone. Carefully, slowly, Jack threaded his fingers through Daniel's long, expressive ones. Like dancers, their fingers clasped and unclasped, squeezing lightly, then releasing, knuckles clashing, roughened skin whispering against roughened skin, that left hand no longer alone but embraced.

Slowly, as if the air around them had thickened like honey, Jack drew Daniel's hand to his mouth, and with the tiniest of movements, kissed each fingertip where it lay along the back of his hand. The fingers were long, elegant, the nails short and squared, and they burned against his lips as if some molten fluid ran through Daniel's veins.

All this, he couldn't figure out any of this, not on a coldly logical level, not when he focused on it. All that was left to him was to blindly fumble with his emotions, emotions of which he was usually a master at controlling, except for those gut-wrenching moments when his mouth shot off before his brain could pull the emergency brake. But the very lack of fear at any impending cliff face or Jersey barrier impelled him forward, logic left withering in the dust and unmourned. He was both raw reality of this newer self, and fuzzy watercolor emotions that softened the blow.

Another look to evaluate Daniel, and Jack saw that the eyes were now a deep, cornflower blue, shining in sunlight that had deepened to gold, slanting sideways through the great bay windows, glinting off the blond highlights in Daniel's short hair. With a small tug, Daniel pulled Jack's hand to his own mouth, returning the reverent favor, the rounded bottom lip pliant along Jack's toughened fingers.

Those fingers, so handy with a gun, so clever with a knife, pulled from Daniel's grasp and ran along the smooth sweep of Daniel's cheekbone, the skin soft and flushed as a peach. For long moments, Jack just stroked that spot with his thumb, his other fingers laid against the cheek, their tips buried in the hair above Daniel's ear. Over and over, Jack felt the glide of blood and skin beneath the whorls of his thumb, and he wondered about the fragility of life, the perfection that was life, the amazing concatenation of cells and atoms and some cosmic spark that made the human body what it was, made _this_ particular human body what it was. He felt another sigh that started in the very bottom of his lungs, and he was even more aware of, and at one with, that peacefulness he'd felt when he'd seen Daniel from the doorway. It was always this way with Daniel – it was just them, who they were, who they _are_, stripped, unvarnished, as honest as with each other as two people could get without saying a word between them. Against his thigh, he felt pressure as Daniel's hand flattened, the fingers pressing into his jeans.

Leaning closer, Jack let his hand wander from Daniel's cheek and into his hair, feeling the shimmy of each short strand, and he remembered when he'd first seen this hair, long and academic and always in the way, a perfect veil for eyes that looked upon the world with equal parts bemusement and curiosity. Over the years, the hair had changed, there had been sideburns, there had been cowlicks, until now there were just the short, utilitarian locks that still somehow seemed always to be mussed, that sure sign of an intellectual who forgot where he was and ran his hands through his hair in distraction. The eyes – so blue now as to be almost incandescent as they focused intently on Jack's face – still looked upon, not the world, now, but the universe with bemusement and curiosity, and perhaps a touch of cynicism.

But there was no trace of that cynicism now. Instead, there was a curiosity and a wonder that burned away the bemusement until all that was left was a naked truth. Jack met that gaze honestly, throwing the shutters wide, feeling Daniel's eyes laser through layers of sarcasm, hurt and his fierce privacy until there was nothing left but blue and brown and the shimmering moment between them.

No worries there, then. Daniel was not only on the same page, but in the same paragraph. The knowledge clubbed Jack upside with the head with such a rush of relief, joy and stark, frantic terror that he was, quite literally, breathless.

And then he was pulled. That was the only way he could put it. He was pulled, not by Daniel, but by that shimmering thing between them that connected them like an arc of electricity. Like he was caught a slow-motion riptide, Jack leaned further in, his left hand next to Daniel's right shoulder, propping him up on the mattress, his right hand now cupping Daniel's chin, his ever-inquisitive thumb slipping over that bottom lip until the skin was as flushed and rosy as the cheek.

Maybe this is what it means to be Ascended, Jack thought muzzily, his face just inches from Daniel's, their breath warm and mingling. No fireworks, no rolls of thunder, no glowing beings from another plane of existence, no, just the muffled twitting of birds outside the bedroom window, the wind soughing softly through the eaves, and Daniel, vibrant, alive, trusting, not trapped between his arms but resting, fitted, a piece of the puzzle that had been slotted into place. Finally.

People say time stands still. Jack had always thought that yet another cliché by which he was to be eternally irritated. But it was true, so true, so unbelievably, ironically true. Everything focused into this one moment, tightened, contracted, as if the minutes and seconds were holding their breath. There was no thought in Jack's head but that this was _Daniel_, not just a name, but a whole collection of memories and arguments and hugs and shouts and tears and laughter, a miraculous blending of bone and flesh and corpuscle, given life by the beneficence of some higher power. There _had_ to be a higher power that made this all what it was, fresh, new, old, perfect, comfortable, frustrating, deeply fulfilling.

This wasn't easy. Even though the part of him that was free-thinking enough to step through an alien device created by an alien people connecting to an alien world accepted unquestioningly the truth in this place, in this man, his lifelong expectations and loyalty to something bigger and further than himself sent up belligerent, if ignored, shouts of remonstrance that he studiously ignored.

He was tired of not being whole.

Jack touched his lips to Daniel's. The moment tightened even further, Jack couldn't have told you which way was up, and it didn't matter if he didn't know north from south, in this very instant there was just the humming of so many years spent in each other's heads and hearts and holding each other's lives in each other's hands, precious as a newborn. Their lips barely moved, merely resting, feeling the heat of delicate skin, questions asked and answered with every breath.

Then the moment released, blew apart, fragmented and dissolved, and the pressure of lip on lip increased, the questions more difficult now, lips parting subtly to allow the tiniest touch of tongue. That's all there was, tip and touch and tentative exploration, Jack's right hand still cradling Daniel's face, the other hand on the mattress, fingers slowly clenching the bottom sheet. The hand on Jack's thigh tightened its grip on the denim, the inner seam digging into his flesh with a pleasant zing of discomfort.

They separated, no breaking apart, but instead a mellow disconnection of lips, the stubble around both their mouths prickling and stinging. Jack looked into Daniel's eyes, mere inches from his own, and there was only an answering pleasure in this moment, and a complete and unwavering acceptance of the shift in their realities.

It was both as easy as that, and as difficult as that. A lifetime of conditioning warred with the perfect freedom and unexpected pleasure of having found something that was unburdened by guilt or obligation, and Jack was stymied into perfect stillness by the pressure exerted by the rock and the hard place.

With another sigh, filled with a sort of buzzing contentment, Jack leaned up and kissed one eye closed, then the other, feeling the tickle of the eyelashes against his lips. He pulled the comforter up around Daniel's shoulders, his touch lingering, gentle, caressing, as he smoothed the hair back from Daniel's forehead.

"I'll be back," Jack whispered, and he was gone, taking the cooled coffee with him, leaving the heavy shadows that now gathered in the darkened bedroom.

For a moment Daniel lay there, his mind a complete and utter blank, his body thrumming with warmth, comfort and a bewildering weightlessness.

Then there was the chink of the coffee pot, and the clink of coffee mugs, and the general sound of Jack bumping into things in the kitchen, and Daniel smiled brilliantly up at the shadow-dappled ceiling.


End file.
